


The Signs of Loss

by LitLocked



Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining!Sherlock, Post-The Sign of Three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:36:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitLocked/pseuds/LitLocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's internal monologue after he comes back from the wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Signs of Loss

_When blood was gushing forth from the anxious temples of my desire_

_When my life was nothing other than the ticking of the clock_

_I realized that I must love_

_That I must madly love._

-         Forough Farrokhzad, from “Window”

 

Sherlock waits. For the pain to leave him. For his mind to start functioning at full throttle again. Or start functioning at all, really. 

He has never let his mask slip to this extent; never allowed anyone to get under his skin. Never dreamt that someone could slide past his armour so effortlessly and so completely as to hinder _everyday functioning_. But as with everything, John Watson is the exception to this too.

He thinks of ordinary things that go unnoticed by the majority of the dull populace; things that he has trained himself to observe. He thinks of beauty in blood spatter patterns, of connections in places most people would dismiss as routine or be incapable of noticing in the first place. 

He thinks of snowflakes, perfectly ordinary looking, all apparently alike. And yet, under a microscope they reveal layers of unique hexagonal beauty that cannot be catalogued. Every snowflake is a surprise.

How could Sherlock, who had made a living out of seeing things that other people didn't see, fail to see the beauty hidden behind the ordinary jumpers of John?

He should’ve known from the start. Ordinary John Watson was anything but, he now realizes.  He managed to hoodwink his way into _Sherlock Holmes’_ heart, after all. Had made him question everything he knew about himself.

 _Stupid, stupid_. Why did he not deduce it sooner? Why did he wait until he was so completely in John’s grasp as to leave no scope for stepping back? Why did he wait until John’s fucking _wedding_ to realize just how much the man meant to him?

He never could have imagined, never could have predicted the _presence_ of a John Watson in his life, let alone the impact. Of a force that fought the world for him, and yet nestled itself contentedly, unassumingly in the cozy confines of 221 B. Harmless as a hedgehog. The first time he had ever felt at home.

He misses him. Misses their bickering. Their companionable silences, rare though they were. Misses their shared brokenness, misses how he felt safe in his presence. Their mismatched chairs remind him of their somewhat mismatched personalities, catching each other whenever one of them slipped up. They had fit together so perfectly it’s a miracle Sherlock is managing to breathe despite the John-shaped chasm in his life.

He never did tell John. Never told him how his voice had never left his mind, how he was always there, goading him sharply but never cruelly. Sherlock had understood the meaning of true loneliness in those two years. He had been homeless for most of the time, and yet nothing came close to the homelessness of living in a 221 B without John. He had never really appreciated how John had become a necessity, more important than food and sleep. He had taught himself to live without those two anyway, but learning to live without John was proving harder than he could ever have anticipated.

Here he was. On the losing side. Lost to a short blond ex-army doctor with nerves of steel and impeccable moral principle, who made him whole and then blew him into smithereens when he walked away. Finally prey to the chemical defect he had mocked Irene for. Even she knew, long before he had ever given it conscious thought.

The extent of his obliviousness when everyone else around them had just _known_ , comes back to taunt him now. The world’s only consulting _detective_ , he grimaces in distaste. Who couldn’t detect sentiment so painfully _obvious_ that even Mrs Hudson and the Yarders had sensed it long before him.  

He replays the waltz he had composed for Mary and John, in his mind. He hadn’t managed to contain its melancholy tones while composing; it’s almost as if he was trying to convey his love to John through sad music. They had waltzed, perfect together, while he had stood on the sidelines, playing. He wishes he could delete that tune now, because it brings back memories of him teaching John to waltz, wishing, imagining himself in Mary’s place. But their dance was the dirty secret that needed closed curtains to hide, while John and Mary’s dance could be celebrated and seen by everyone.

His thoughts drift to the Mayfly Man case, a case that he’d mentally renamed as Epiphany About John. The delayed stabbing was so perfect metaphorically that he still feels unable to get his head around it. The invisible man with the invisible knife: John had arrived, seemingly insignificant but with a hidden menace that had made him so useful to Sherlock. He slipped a knife through his heart, so stealthily that it took Sherlock _years_ to even notice anything amiss. And now he had left, wedding and all, with a clueless bleeding out detective in his wake.

 _Best_ friend, John had called him. Yet again, defied his expectations by forgiving something that should’ve been unforgivable in light of this new data: it must’ve really hurt John to lose his _best friend_ , when he had jumped off that rooftop. But John was John, kind as ever, kinder than Sherlock deserved.

Deserved. Did he really, truly deserve to be the best friend of the man he had hurt so much, so casually? And the man he was now having uncontrollable inappropriate thoughts about? He wants to touch, taste, smell John- make him so irreversibly his, mark him so that the whole world would know they belonged to each other. _Mine, mine, mine!_ screams every fibre of his being.

 _No,_ says the voice of reason in his head. _He’s married. Married to a woman he loves. A smart woman who deserves him, not an emotionally crippled junkie like you._

He could hide behind all the sarcasm he could muster, all the disparaging looks he threw at everyone, but he could not deny that one absolutely illogical but true fact: he _loves_ John, loves him with all his carefully concealed heart, his barely human self, his once-brilliant-but-now-slipping mind. And wants to love him with his drug-ravaged, sleep-and-food-deprived body too, but knows that it is too late to even hope for that. Despair spikes his want so achingly it’s almost as if every nerve of his is on fire, and only John’s touch would put him out of his misery.

Deciding that oblivion would be preferable to this agony, he picks up the syringe again.


End file.
